Sweet Charlies — Restaurant in Huntsville

Review is only for atmosphere and service; I was unable to actually try the food because of, well, service. Only reason this is a 2 star instead of a 1 -- it's possible the ice cream is good, but I sure didn't get to try it.

Located off the main drag of highway in Madison, this is a small chain offering rolled ice cream, milkshakes, cookies, and liege waffles with decadent toppings. It's been here a little while and so I thought I'd stop by for an afternoon treat while waiting to attend an event nearby last Thursday.

I entered into the smallish, narrow space and was immediately struck by how...dead it felt. There was one other customer (or perhaps an owner/manager, though if it was, that's kind of disappointing given my experience). It was kind of dark inside and it smelled weird -- not noxious or anything but a little musty and certainly not a yummy, sweet, ice cream, cookie, or waffle scent like you might expect.

I wasn't greeted but I wandered up to the register where an employee was listlessly -- and I mean LISTLESSLY - pushing around a few sad ice cream rolls. Every other time I've watched ice cream get rolled the worker has almost been like a hibachi chef, rapidly cutting, dicing, rolling, and flipping. This reminded me of picking a scab.

I said hello; I don't remember if the young female employee said anything back, she might've muttered a greeting but it definitely wasn't a warm welcome. Having never been here before, I was a little unclear on the process (e.g., what are mix-ins vs toppings; what's available; are there pre-made creations, etc.), but she never offered to answer any questions or render assistance, even as I stood for several minutes gazing up at the menu. All I heard from her for a while - as she continued to listlessly scrape the ice cream around - were several very loud, gnarly-sounding sniffles. They were bad enough that I started to feel concerned she was sick. These concerns were further worsened by the fact she wasn't wearing gloves.

While that thought flickered through my mind, I abruptly heard her say, "I'm sorry." I assumed she was talking to me since I'd been waiting for a while, and so I reflexively said, "You're fine!" I quickly realized she wasn't speaking to me at all and was instead having a conversation on the phone through the headphones she was wearing. Nice. This went on for another minute or two -- it was a fairly personal conversation and she seemed to be consoling someone on the other end -- and I just decided it wasn't worth the hassle and frustration.

Y'all know I try my best to be very forgiving of service and such but this was a bridge too far for me. I had read reviews prior to coming here about service being bad and I thought surely people were overreacting or being entitled but now I don't think so. Perhaps the product is good, but you'll be hard-pressed to sell much of it if employees aren't even willing to make it...

I came here tonight with a group of friends. We ordered a 6 pack of cookies, 2 individual cookies. They told me and my friends that the order would take 15 minutes for the cookies. After, being at Sweet Charlie’s for more than an hour. We finally got our order. We spoke to “The owners niece,” she explained to us that each cookie takes 15 minutes to make. Half of the cookies, we got was on the display, so basically only 4 cookies had to be baked. Apparently, the oven isn’t big enough to do more than one flavor at a time. After, she explained this to us, she asked us if, we had anymore questions. Because, apparently we was wasting her time.I really tried to understand her explanation, but it honestly doesn’t make sense. I just wanted to share my experience with you all, in case any of you door dash, or are in a rush. I can’t reply to your response, so I am going to edit my review. We, was in fact there for an hour. We asked why it took an hour for our ordered to be completed. You, said “because we had two additional cookie orders it took this long.” However, no one ordered twice just once. If yesterday, you would have said “the issue was, we made a mistake and forgot your ordered.” I wouldn’t have gave you a bad review. However, that wasn’t the case. Reviews are left for a customer’s experience and this was my experience and apparently I’m not the first this...

I work door dashing and I had an order here to pick up and I had to wait 35-40 minutes for 7 cookies. I understand about being short handed but I was told they would have my order ready after they handled the family in front of them so I went right up the street to Wendy's to pick up another order and came right back and had to sit and wait 30 mins inside the store for them to make the order which made me late for a different delivery and this one. I got the order finally at 9:05pm. Very displeased I hope I don't have to pick up from here again. You shouldn't have kids running the store if you're not going to complete orders as specifically stated by employee on my first arrival to pick the order up. Again they didn't even start the cookies until I came back the 2nd time to pick up the order which was supposed to be ready about 30 mins before closing. I did not receive my delivery order until after closing. Sweet charlies shouldn't take delivery orders if you're not going to have them ready because some of us do this for a living. Customer service is the number one priority PERIOD!!! The 2 female employees that were there are very...